After May slump, Galaxy look to continue torrid June form

CARSON, Calif. – The Galaxy closed out May with three games in an eight-day span and lost all three. Entering Saturday’s match against the Vancouver Whitecaps (10:30 pm ET, TSN in Canada, watch LIVE online), LA could turn that statistic completely on its head.

The Galaxy started June with two consecutive wins – a 1-0 result at home against the Portland Timbers and a comeback 3-2 win over Real Salt Lake at Rio Tinto Stadium. A victory on Saturday would give LA three wins in the last seven days.

“It’s a huge confidence boost,” Galaxy midfielder David Beckham said. “Each game that we play, it doesn’t matter who we’re playing against, it’s a confidence boost when you win. We just need to keep moving forward.”

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The Galaxy haven’t exactly flipped the switch and gone from terrible to dominant overnight. LA’s effort has been strong all season, even in the face of mounting losses, but players have pointed to small mistakes and bad luck that opponents have taken advantage of.

Now LA have points to show for that effort, and players are hoping to capitalize on that.

“We need to do our part to keep winning games and worry about everything else later,” Galaxy captain Landon Donovan said, “but we’ve got to keep winning games and keep the momentum going.”

The Galaxy entered the week in unfamiliar territory, sitting at the bottom of the Western Conference table. After earning six points in four days, LA vaulted past both FC Dallas and Portland to take seventh place in the table. Perhaps more significantly, the Galaxy are just two points back of Colorado for the fifth and final playoff spot in the West.

“We are starting to move up the ladder a little bit,” head coach Bruce Arena said. “Three games ago, we were sitting in a difficult position and now we’ve got six points in two games and we want to get another three on Saturday. … That would put us in a decent position as we try to improve in the second half of the season. This week would indicate that things are moving in the right direction.”

While the team’s confidence and spirits are up, the swagger from last season is not all the way back – and for good reason.

“We’re not going to get carried away over two wins now,” Donovan said. “We’ve had a really poor start to the season so we’ve got a lot of ground to make up."